I’m getting pretty excited — we’re only two posts away from #900, which means #1000 is appearing on the horizon!

How about some random pronunciation stuff today (maybe review for some of you)?

nombril

Do you know how the Québécois pronounce nombril(belly button)? Nombril is pronounced nom-bri in Québec. The pronunciation nom-bril is heard in France.

If something’s le nombril du monde, it’s “the belly button of the world,” or in idiomatic English: the centre of the universe.

lundi

Do you remember how the Québécois pronounce lundi? There’s a dz sound in it: lun-dzi. That’s because the letter d makes a little buzzing dz before the i sound.

Not only will you hear dz in lundi, you’ll hear it in all the names of the days of the week: lun[dz]i,mar[dz]i,mercre[dz]i,jeu[dz]i, vendre[dz]i, same[dz]i, [dz]imanche.

If you want to adopt this yourself, don’t go overboard pronouncing dz. It’s not dzzzzzzzzzzz! Just dz.

fâché

If you listen to lots of spoken Québécois French, you know how â sounds (a little like aw). But even if you’re aware of this, you might still be surprised to hear words that you’ve known for a long time pronounced with the Québécois â. Can you say how fâché sounds using the â sound? What about château?